AKT1 and cancer: In addition to regulation by sterols, SREBP-1 has been shown to be stabilized and activated by the PI3K/Akt oncogenic signaling pathway in cancer [26]; hence, we assessed the activation of EGFR and PI3K in ESCC cells and showed that the phosphorylation of EGFR and PI3K was significantly inhibited following LPCAT1 knockdown (Fig. 5E and Supplementary Fig. 8C, D).